Prayers for July

 

God of new days and new months, we arrive at the doorway to the half-way point of 2022.  We can look in the rearview mirror of life recalling our New Year’s resolutions from January of this year when 2022 was a blank canvass ready for us to paint new ways.  Remember, recall, what resolutions or prayers or ideas swirled inside YOU on January 1, 2022?  Name them this morning.  Are your prayers from six months ago still swirling and stirring in your life?  Have you forgotten them?  Is today an opportunity to name prayers for the second half of this year?  As you look back at the first half of this year, recall moments of laughing with friends.  If you close our eyes, can you still smell the lilies of Easter or hear the music that warmed your hearts?  Here we are, O God, on this first day of July.  Here You are, O God, meeting us in this moment reminding us that today is brand-new, and tomorrow is too.  This is a moment full of possibility and promise to live fully in the image of God that you are being fashioned and formed and loved into living.  Today, open your hearts to God’s grace which makes a difference and makes you different.  Open your imaginations to not be confined or defined only by the headline news, rather create space for the Good News of God who is always calling you home.  As you set sail for the second part of this year, clear out the cobwebs and clutter in our minds for Your good news that nothing separates you from God.  Nothing.  Nada.  Zip.  Not even that objection right now the lawyer in your mind is trying to voice from the back of your brain.  Not even that regret that resides unresolved on the shelf of your soul.  Not even the bumbles and stumbles.  Open your life this day to leap into July ready to explore and experience the Eternal now of this moment.  May July be blessed with renewal, replenishment, and a recommitment to follow the One who is the light of the World, Jesus the Christ.  Amen.